A sermon by the Rev. Bruce Clear
Sunday, January 18, 2009
All
NOTE: Every four
years, since 1985, I have written a letter to the candidate elected (or
re-elected) as President of the United States.
The letter is actually sent. This
is the 2009 version, and probably the most important one (to me) that I’ve ever
written.
Dear Mr. President: Barak Obama,
Like almost everyone I know, since November I’ve been
wondering if it was all a dream. In my
lifetime, we have gone from segregation of restaurants, restrooms, and water
fountains to an election that places an African American family in the White
House.
Like many others I know, my pride in my country has been
re-born. The clichés we grew up learning
about America’s freedoms – the clichés
that too often turn to cynicism when you grow up discover the gulf between
American ideals and American reality – those clichés have new life now.
Mr. President, this Sunday is reserved every year at All Souls
Unitarian Church as a time to honor and celebrate the legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr. It is hard to imagine
any greater honor to his memory than what this country will witness on Tuesday
in your inauguration.
In many ways I don’t envy your task. I doubt that any President ever entered
office with expectations as high as most Americans have for you. Overall, we are expecting that ….
·
You are going to bring
an end to the unnecessary war in Iraq, and bring to justice from Afghanistan
those responsible for the terror of September 11, 2001.
·
You will restore to us
our reputation in the world as a citadel of justice and human rights, a friend
on whom other countries can rely.
·
You are going to lead
·
Americans will be
become finally unified in purpose and no longer factionalized by race or
politics, religion or social status.
·
The disasters awaiting
future generations that have for so long been ignored will finally be addressed
and resolved: global warming will be reversed, future Americans will be offered
affordable health care, and the next generations won’t have to pay off our
debts. Energy dependence on oil will
end, and alternatives will be found that are so cheap that we won’t need to
measure energy consumption.
·
In short, under your
Administration, America will become a land flowing with “milk and honey,” the
streets will become paved with gold, winters will be reduced to one week a
year, good will triumph over evil, and lawns will mow themselves!
I say all this, of course,
with tongue in cheek. We all have high
expectations, and I fear your greatest challenge is not the problems we face,
but the expectations we have of you that no person can possibly fulfill.
Few presidents have ever
entered office with a stronger popular hope for success, anticipating that
While few presidents have
come to office with such hopeful confidence from the American people, it is
also true that, with the possible exception of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, few
presidents have come to office to face so many and such far-reaching
challenges.
We are entangled in two wars,
neither of which has a successful end in sight.
Our economy has taken a nose-dive more disastrous than since the
depression. Along with the economy, key
parts of our national policy infrastructure are threatened, such as social security
and the national debt. Our health care
system, which is the most expensive on earth, is, overall, among the least
effective, failing to serve millions of people at all, including millions of
children, and driving millions more into personal bankruptcy.
Our respect from around the
world is at what seems like an all-time low, and along with a loss of respect
comes a loss of credibility, influence, and leadership. American confidence in our own government is
also at an all-time low; government is perceived as in the control of
lobbyists, and elected officials are seen primarily as influence-salesmen. Long established protections of civil
liberties, such as government needing a court warrant to spy on citizens, and
prohibitions against torture, and respect for international treaties, seems to
be crumbling before our eyes.
I’m sure I don’t need to
continue this list of challenges – I expect you visit them every day, if not
every night in your sleep. My point is a
cautionary one. You come into office
with the highest popular set of expectations for success, and you are expected
to tackle problems that may be the most demanding and intractable ever to face
a new president.
What can I say other than
“Good Luck” with that, and “God-speed”!
Well, there are a few things
I can say, not so much advice – I know you have advisers far more insightful
than I am – so I offer not advice, but aspiration. Wish.
It is that sense of common
cause that may be what is missing in the current set of crises. After September 11, the American people as a
whole hungered to find ways to come together and unite our efforts to ensure a
safe future. But very little was asked
of us. We were told it was important to
return to our normal activities, and well, keep shopping. There were men and women who were of age who
harnessed their wish to help by enlisting in the military. Unfortunately, most of them were sent to a
war that had nothing to do with protecting our country from terrorism. For the rest of us, the battle against
terrorism was little more than a television miniseries, which ended when we
turned the TV off.
Our various crises of today,
I think, rise to a level that calls out for national unity. It is in that sense that I hope you won’t be
afraid to call on us to join efforts together.
I know you’ve been part of a conversation about a program of national
volunteer service. I can’t help but feel
that may head us down a right path, even though any program with the word
“compulsory” attached to it is bound to stick in my Unitarian craw.
I have been a minister for 25
years now. I expect all ministers of all
denominations share in this observation:
that the more people give to their church through volunteer time or financial
contribution or leadership, the greater the personal benefit they receive from
their church membership.
I don’t know if it works the
same way with citizenship, but I do know that right now being an American
carries with it too much feel of helplessness.
I don’t know what the answer is, but I have confidence that our country
will be healthier when we citizens feel we are doing something to help solve
problems, and not just spectators who hand the problems over to
politicians. I hope you can sprinkle a
little JFK into your efforts, recalling his most remembered words from his 1961
inauguration: “Ask not what your country
can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”
*******************
It is almost paralyzing to
reflect on the enormity of the problems we face. And yet, I’ve read just a bit about
organizational development, especially as it relates to churches, but also with
broader application. We are told it is
often best to build on our strengths rather than focus on our weaknesses. You come to office with an abundance of
personal strengths, and I am confident those will serve you well.
On the top of the list of
strengths, something that seems all too rare among politicians, is your sense
of humility. I’ve often felt that
humility is too often overlooked as one of the great human virtues. You, above all people, appear amazed by your
extraordinary rise in politics, and you seem as astonished as anyone else by
its improbable and unexpected success.
You seem to understand that
success comes not entirely from your own talents and achievements, but from the
people who place their confidence in your judgment and leadership. In that sense, your success is earned not so
much by what brought you to office, but more by what people expect from your
leadership after January 20. This is
surely a humbling realization.
Fortunately, this is helped
by another personal strength you bring to office. Healthy humility brings with it an eagerness
to seek counsel from those well experienced on complex issues. So far, this appears to be something
characteristic to your style. Most
analysis suggests that you have chosen advisors well, and those who know you
seem to report with unanimity your willingness to listen to others with open
mind.
One aspiration that we
Americans have been hungering for is to come together in unity as a
society. For too long we have felt
ourselves a nation unnecessarily divided in itself. With your election, we see an opportunity to
turn that around. In your words that
launched your political career in 2004,
“There
is not a liberal America and a conservative America -- there is the United
States of America. There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America
and Asian America -- there’s the United States of America.”
Few of us are naïve enough to
think such sense of unity can happen overnight – or in four years, or eight
years, or twenty-eight years. Or maybe
even ever. Your election does not bring
national unity, but what it has brought, for the first time in my memory, is
the daring thought, the audacious hope, that unity is possible. That is something that was previously outside
the reach of anyone’s dreams.
I appreciate that it is not
just rhetoric. On Tuesday, you bring to
your inauguration ceremonies the prayers of Eugene Robinson, the first openly
gay Bishop of in the American Episcopal Church, a man whose election has caused
self-reflective distress throughout the Anglican Communion. You also bring the prayers of evangelical
leader Rick Warren, whose stand against gay marriage in California was at odds
with your views, but who is willing to support your pledge for national
unity. Your inauguration will also bring
the prayers of the Rev. Joseph Lowery, a hero of the civil rights movement in
the 1960s, and a life-long defender of human rights for all.
I mentioned earlier the
importance of humility. You seem to have
the rare ability to combine that asset with a talent for instilling confidence
in others. That was evident in your
campaign motto “Yes, We Can!,” and while I understand that such a motto is a
useful political tool – even, one might say, a political gimmick – it succeeded
in inspiring confidence in millions of people who have felt not only
disenfranchised but helpless. Over the
years, Americans in general seem to have succumbed to a kind of fatalism that
says we can’t do anything to stem the downward economic spiral. We can’t seem to make the world like and
respect us no matter what we do. We
can’t even get along well with each other, being plagued by divisions of race,
religion and ideologies.
But when you said “Yes, We
Can,” even the cynical entertain the possibility that we can shape the
future.
True confidence can be a
self-fulfilling prophesy. A sense of
confidence instills a sense of power. A
feeling of having power is a prerequisite to exercising power. To the extent you can continue to pass that
confidence on, we may regain our moral strength and character as a nation. Your electoral victory makes “Yes, We Can”
much more than an empty campaign slogan.
It happened.
Like most candidates, you
made many promises in the campaign, some of which I am sure will be too
challenging or even impossible to keep.
But on this Sunday which celebrates the legacy of Martin Luther King,
the greatest and seemingly most impossible challenge of all has been
accomplished. When you and your family
go to your home in the White House on Tuesday night, one significant piece of Dr.
King’s “dream” will be realized.
Mr. President, every four
years since 1985, I have written these open sermon/letters to the newly elected
President. More often than not, I spent
a great deal of those letters listing concerns I have for his handling the job
over the next four years. This letter is
different, in some ways easier to write and in some ways more difficult. It is easier to write because of the
extraordinary circumstances of this election.
It is more difficult to write because it isn’t easy to get beyond those
extraordinary circumstances and focus on the next four years.
There will be mistakes that
are made in your leadership. You, and
those who advise you, are human. You
know that. We are fortunate, as I mentioned
earlier, to have a leader with some humility.
And yet, in some ways the
burden of leadership will rest heavier on your shoulders than any of your
predecessors, with the possible exception of Lincoln’s second election. Your election symbolizes the victory of
American ideals, and reflects positively on the diverse makeup of our society. My biggest concern, I guess – my biggest
fear, even – is that when you make mistakes, as you will, it will reflect on
that diversity. My biggest fear is that
people will hold you responsible for the destiny of all minorities in America. Were that to happen, the American experiment
will have failed.
So I close my comments with
this hope. Your election represents the
triumph of an American vision of human equality and justice. That seems to be, for good reason, the theme
of this inaugural week. Your race
matters to the extent that this American vision has been achieved. But my deepest hope is that in four years,
your race won’t matter, won’t be an issue, won’t even be noticed. In four years, I hope that you won’t be
thought of as “our first African American President,” but you will become,
instead, simply “our President.” Your
successes or failures will be attributable to your own political values, your
advisors, and your policies. The
successes or mistakes of your Administration will be your successes or
mistakes.
Your race is profoundly
important this week. In large part
because of your race, your inauguration is a monumental milestone in American
history. But my hope is that, beginning
on Wednesday, the day after the inauguration, in the minds of the American
people, you are no longer our “African American President.” You are our President. Period.
Your race is important in defining who you are as a person. That can’t be denied. But it should never again be a defining
aspect of your job or any person’s job.
I admire you, but I don’t
envy you. You carry into office the
highest popular expectations, you will face among the most serious policy
challenges, and you carry weight all the aspirations of minorities in this
country. The most hopeful part, however,
is that you take with you, I believe, the best wishes the whole country,
including those who voted against you.
In a previous open
sermon/letter I wrote over a decade ago to one of your newly elected
predecessors, I pleaded with the new President that I wanted him to be my
President, too. Not President to just
those who voted for him. In a way that
no other President could, you, President Obama, have the opportunity to serve
as everyone’s President. Your early
decisions in planning for your administration indicate that is precisely what
you want to be.
And you take with you all the
best wishes of the American people. More
extensive best wishes than any previous President I think. THAT’S the Good News. . . .
And let’s just stop with the
good news. There is no bad news this
week.
Congratulations. Good luck.
And God-speed.
Sincerely,
The Rev. Bruce Clear, minister
All Souls Unitarian Church
Indianapolis, Indiana
P.S. By the way, President Obama, yesterday a
water pipe in our crawl space at home froze and burst. I was just wondering if maybe you might have
a phone number for Joe the Plumber that you could pass on.